


Unremarkable

by thedevilchicken



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Confessions, First Time, Getting Together, Ghosts, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Masturbation, POV Tony Stark, Post-Canon, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:15:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Tony died. Just maybe not all the way.
Relationships: Minor Peter Parker/Original Male Character, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 14
Kudos: 169
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside)





	Unremarkable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LearnedFoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/gifts).



Tony doesn't remember what death felt like. 

He remembers how dying felt, though, and honestly it felt like not a whole hell of a lot. Dying felt pretty remarkably unremarkable. He'd eaten more remarkable bagels. He'd chewed more remarkable gum and worn more remarkable suits, not just _the_ suit but also, once upon a time, a really hot grape-colored velour number more like he was going to prom in the 1970s than some tech awards night in 2002. And sure, he'd worn it mostly 'cause he'd lost a bet with Rhodey, but goddamn if grape velour hadn't had a moment there. 

Dying felt unremarkable. The only really remarkable thing about it was the look on Peter Parker's face like the whole damn sky was falling in and not just like Iron Man was falling out of it and how, somehow, no one there thought it was weird that the kid was the one who got to get in there and say goodbye. Not Rhodey. Not Steve. Not Pep, on a long-distance call from the cabin with Morgan because wow, what kind of a screw-up dies while they're on the phone with their kid? Sure, so it wasn't like they couldn't afford to get her all the therapy she'd ever need as a result of that, but jeez he didn't want to be that guy. 

So, it was Peter Parker who held his hand and told him, "You'll be fine, sir!" so peppy maybe Tony could've believed him except the tears in his eyes said that was so much happy horsecrap. 

"You need to get a better poker face, kid," Tony said. Then, "What use is this thing if I can't even save myself?" Then, when Peter looked at the gauntlet on Tony's hand like hey, maybe that was it, maybe that was the answer, all he had to do was put it on himself and snap his fingers like they were hanging out in some shitty late-night jazz club and not a fricking battlefield, he squeezed his hand and said, "No. Don't even think about it."

"But I--"

"Don't you dare." 

"But you--"

"Kid, say goodbye."

Peter blinked and tears ran down both his cheeks like the world was ending and they had not, in actual fact, just saved it. "Don't die, Mr. Stark," he said, in a tiny voice, almost under his breath, almost like he'd only just that realized Tony was mortal; maybe that was true. "Please don't die," he said, and he swallowed. He frowned. He squeezed Tony's hand. He shuffled closer. "Don't let go," he said, and Tony smiled. 

"I'll never let go, Jack," he replied, pseudo-solemnly, like maybe they were freezing in the ocean and not sitting in an ocean of rubble. "I promise." And Peter laughed while he cried till it sounded more like hiccupping and maybe what he meant to say was something about how the Titanic had always been going to sink or how maybe Kate Winslet could play Tony in the movie when shit got back to normal. Maybe Karen could've struck up with a little Celine and made the moment really special. But whatever he said, Tony didn't hear it; he saw his lips move but he couldn't hear a single sound - not Peter, not the whole damn army that was standing around like the queue outside a comic book convention. Not his own breath. Maybe that had stopped.

Titanic had always been going to sink, just like Tony had always been going to die. And, as he died, all he knew was he'd just made a promise. Pretty much the dumbest promise in the history of everything, maybe, given he was absolutely sure he was going to break it four seconds after making it, but a promise nonetheless. 

He thinks maybe that's why he came back. 

\---

The first time he woke up, he was lying on the floor. 

He guessed it didn't count as _the_ floor if you didn't have a goddamn clue which floor it was, or where, or whose, so it was really more like he woke up lying on _a_ floor. And it wasn't some neat and tidy stretched-out-for-a-nap crap - he woke sprawled there, face down because of course he was face down, like he'd passed out drunk someplace and totally forgotten both a) where in the world that place was (once it had been a tent at Everest base camp and once it had been Meryl Streep's front lawn, so who even knew), and b) the whole drinking part that had gotten him there in the first place. Besides, he didn't feel hungover. He was pretty sure he didn't still feel drunk, either, because if there's one thing Tony knew it was how _drunk_ felt. He didn't feel drunk. He didn't feel much of anything. And actually, when he lay there and gave it some thought with his face smushed against a floorboard, he couldn't even feel the floorboard that his face was smushed against. 

He sat up. He didn't recognize the room but for at least the first minute that really wasn't his primary concern because _where_ he was was just so much less important than _how_ he was. He remembered the fight, the battle, whatever the blazes you wanted to call it, and he'd've really liked to've just shrugged it off like some after-school scuffle but he was positive he hadn't gotten out of it alive. He remembered dying, or at least he remembered the lead-up to it, that part where mostly he'd felt tired and sad and kinda pissed off at the universe that his last words had been a goddamn meme, but not a whole lot else aside from that. Now, he felt even less. 

He couldn't feel his breath, which was probably because he wasn't breathing. He couldn't feel air against his skin as he moved, or the floor beneath his feet when he stood himself up. He could feel himself - not, y'know, _feel himself_ , that would've been kinda weird right off the bat, but he could snap his fingers and feel the friction that sparked between them even if it didn't have that Infinity Stone kick in accompaniment. He could run his hands over his hair and feel it oddly salon-smooth against his palms, and he could feel the track pants and tee he was wearing that kind of rubbed his leg hair the wrong way, but he couldn't feel anything else. Which was at least partly because he couldn't actually touch anything else in order to be able to feel it in the first place. His hands went straight through the window and the closet door and the laptop sitting closed on the desk and when he looked in the mirror hanging on the back of the door, well, he was there, sure, but he was mostly transparent and slightly blue. 

"Well, crap," Tony said, to no one in particular because hey, turned out Luke Skywalker was nowhere in sight, and even in death he was pretty sure he didn't look much like Alec Guinness. But he for damn sure looked like the Force ghost of Tony Stark, barefoot in an unknown bedroom in a t-shirt from 1982 and nothing, _nothing_ , made sense. 

So, he looked around. The place looked like a college dorm, he thought - shitty decor and a single bed that looked like it was ready to either swallow you whole or launch you into space depending on its current mood, and an array of shirts and socks that had almost but not quite made it into the laundry basket by the closet door. It was a single room, kinda small, but Tony guessed if he'd worn the suit for so many years he couldn't get claustrophobic in a dorm room with walls he could probably walk straight through, like that was anywhere close to being normal. And of course, of _course_ , curse of the goddamn modern age, there was no calendar on the wall or planner open on the desk or any way for him to put a fix on his place in time except the fact he was pretty sure it was at least the day he'd died because they had _not_ had smartphones or bluetooth headphones back in his old campus days. 

He figured it was probably Peter's room, though he guessed as far as he knew Peter was still in high school. Maybe if he'd gone searching through the closet, sticking his face into gym bags like he had no fear of month-old jocks, he would've found the spider-suit, but who knew what you'd find in a college kid's dorm these days and besides that, there was a chance it wasn't Peter's and that'd be kinda weird. Maybe the universe was just kinda perverse and had tossed him into some random kid's room, not _the_ kid's - who knew, somewhere along the line it'd turned out there was just one guy in the world that word could refer to where Tony was concerned, though he figured that'd been true since sometime right around five minutes after they'd met. Maybe he was in Tulsa and not New York, though he had to admit the view out of the window looked a whole hell of a lot like New York. It was probably Peter's. Because if there's one thing Tony had figured out over the years, it was that if the universe has to be perverse, that's the way it plays: sticking him in Peter Parker's room while he's not there. So near, and yet so far.

So he stood there, wondering what the hell he was meant to do now, what the hell was going on, who the hell the room belonged to and where the hell the room's occupant was at that exact moment, all while stoically not thinking about why, if he could shove his head through walls, his feet weren't sinking through the floor. He really didn't need to go barrelling toward the center of the Earth at any moment, never to return henceforth. After all, it was one thing to be a ghost or on a different plane or what-the-hell-ever, and it was another to be stuck in magma till the ending of the world. But he guessed at least if it came to that, it wasn't like he could feel anything. 

Then the door opened, and he had to admit the last thing on his mind was magma. The only thing that had any part of his attention was the fact that it _was_ Peter. But he didn't get to say a word. He didn't even get to see his face except a not totally flattering side view. Tony started fading out like a shitty hologram, and he woke up back on the floor again. 

_A_ floor, he guessed, not _the_ floor, because it wasn't even the same floor as before. It was a different place, another dorm room but the smartphone charging on the desk like that was a sensible place to keep a phone when you might actually need to use it at some point was the same one as before, not just the same model - same crack in the lower left edge of the screen like it'd been dropped from a second floor window, same glimmer of a red-and-gold case that Tony was pretty sure would turn out to be Iron Man-related and really, wasn't that just Peter Parker all over. So maybe time had passed, or else Peter was leading some kind of a triple life instead of just the regular old double one and frankly, Tony was pretty doubtful he was going to keep up the double life too long if anyone thought to ask him straight out. He'd meant what he'd said back there in something like his second-to-last breath: the kid really needed a new poker face. Or maybe just a poker face at all. 

It still looked like New York outside the window, but it was dark getting dark outside this time. There were still shirts hanging out of the laundry basket and strewn on the floor around it like they were making a break for freedom and the math scrawled on the notebook left open on the desk was good, kinda messy but good, so he guessed, yeah, still Peter's place, just a new one. So he waited, because the last thing he wanted right then was to go strolling off barefoot and glowy through a college dorm, freaking people out till Pep found out he was back with some stupid Undead Iron Man gif on, crap, whatever app the youth these days was using. Maybe Morgan would find it first, if she was turning out anything like him, and that would kinda suck. 'Put his kid in therapy for years' still wasn't the legacy he wanted to leave behind.

But when the door opened up who even knew how many minutes later, he vanished again and woke up on the floor. It was getting kind of irritating. The universe really needed to knock that shit off. 

He woke up on the floor. _The_ floor this time, he guessed, 'cause it was at least the same one as the last time even if he had only the vaguest idea where it was. The way genius always worked on TV, when he'd gotten bored and binged-watched Netflix with a tub of popcorn the size of his head, he guessed he should've been able to pull the precise location straight out of his ass using the position of the sun or some happy bullshit but he couldn't even see the damn sun out of the window. So he figured, screw it, if this was just going to happen over and over like fricking Groundhog Day till he figured crap out, he'd pop out through the door and take a stroll. If Morgan found him on facetwittergram or what-the-hell-ever, he'd explain. He was pretty sure she'd understand, given he'd somehow managed to come back from the dead. It was a pretty neat trick, even if he had no clue how he'd done it. He'd've really liked to've figured that out.

He walked through the door. He half expected it to feel weird but it really didn't feel anything at all, not even a curious tickle. And there were people there, milling around like something out of a teenage melodrama, like college kids had nothing better to do with their time, and when he walked past them they ignored him. So he said stuff, _hey_ , _hello there_ , waved his hands in front of faces and you'd've thought guys walking through him might've felt weird but it was exactly like the door - he felt nothing. And he got almost, _almost_ to the stairs before he vanished into thin air and woke up on the floor again. It was almost like the scientific method, if you squinted. He wondered if the results would be repeatable.

He did it again; same effect, a quick disappearance and reappearance on the godforsaken floor that he guessed at least someone must've vacuumed, even if it wasn't like he could've gotten covered up in lint. He did it again; he sprinted this time, no courtesy-dodging like maybe any of them could feel it, and he got no closer to the stairs. He jumped out of the side of the building like maybe that was a plan and not just kinda dumb, and before he could even hit the ground - or disappear into the sewer system like he wanted to know what horrors lay in wait down there - he vanished and woke up back on the floor. So he figured maybe that was where he was meant to be. Maybe something was holding him there. But the seasons were changing, he could see that in the sundress-sweater-parka cycle on the people passing by, in the wind that blew the leaves in the trees but couldn't touch him, in the snow one day when he almost-maybe-kinda made it further than he had before, except he knew he really hadn't. Time was passing, and he didn't even know what year it was. 

He started measuring time in resets, instances of waking up on the floor like he'd fallen out of bed and slept the rest of the night on the tacky rug that looked like M&Ms threw up Skittles on a tray full of Cheerios. It wasn't like he tried to keep track but it was in his head anyway, the count ticking over, five, six, ten, twenty, still no Peter, still no anyone else. But then, reset thirty-eight, he lay there on the floor like maybe he'd fallen and he couldn't get up, and the door opened. He sat up. And it was Peter. 

Of course it was Peter. He was right there, with a backpack slung over one shoulder that somehow, even with his super special spider strength, he made look like a ton of bricks, or else the weight of the whole damn world. He looked exactly the same as he always had, except even right then Tony knew that was bull because Peter had changed even just in the time he'd known him while he wasn't dead. He'd changed again since then. His hair was shorter and Tony wasn't sure, maybe he was a little taller, maybe he was a little broader, except he was in no state to judge while sitting on the floor. So he stood up and he looked at him while he was tossing his lead-lined backpack down by the desk and for a second he could've sworn the kid looked back, except then he walked straight through him and he opened the window so who knew, who the hell knew, maybe he'd been peering at a pigeon. Peeping at a pedestrian. Perusing a passerby. 

"Guess you can't see me, either, huh," Tony said. "That sucks." He frowned at Peter's back. "That really, really sucks." He frowned at Peter's front as he turned around and walked straight back through him again and okay, so he figured maybe he'd feel something when it was someone he knew, but it was just like before; he didn't feel a thing and Peter sat down at the desk and he pulled a beat-up old textbook from his bag that looked like it might've been propping up a shelf in a library for as long as Tony had been alive, let alone Peter. He opened it on his desk. He started to study, just like Tony wasn't there at all, like he had no idea he was there. 

For once in his life, or his death, or his undeath, or whatever he was calling this and frankly he hadn't given that much thought, he had no idea what to say. Maybe mostly because he'd've been talking to himself even if he'd spoken, which wouldn't've been the weirdest thing he'd ever done but it might've been one of the saddest. He just sat himself back down in the middle of the Lucky Charms-on-acid rug and crossed his legs like a schoolkid waiting for storytime. Except apparently the story was Peter mumbling about chem class while he stuck in a pair of earbuds and listened to something Tony only caught the bass of. The tinny-ass bass sounded almost as sad as Tony felt while he sat there and watched him, willing him to turn around and say, _just kidding, Mr. Stark!_ Except he didn't. Disappointing barely scratched the surface. Brutally fucking crushing came closer. 

He realized then that all that time he'd been expecting something to happen when they finally made it into the same room, some kind of glorious fanfare, heavens open, hallelujah, _you came back! I knew you'd come back!_ and there was just nothing at all except chemistry homework and Peter scratching the back of his neck with one hand like that helped him think. He'd been expecting that sure, maybe everyone else in the building couldn't see him, couldn't hear him, had no idea he was there at all, but Peter's spidey-sense would tingle and he'd get it - even if he couldn't see him, he'd know. But he yelled. He jumped around like a total jackass, broke into a spirited rendition of _Phantom of the Opera_ just because it was the first thing that came to mind that kinda-sort-maybe sounded like it was about a ghost, and nothing. Nada. Bupkis. He sat back down in a dejected heap. He lay down on his back and he started in on the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my teenage ex-teammate who doesn't know I even exist in the world right now and probably attended my funeral like, four years ago. 

_Four years_. The only useful information he'd gotten out of the whole damn mess was when Peter prodded at his phone to check the time and Tony caught a look at the date, too. Four years. Peter was finishing up his junior year in college. Peter was what, old enough to drink now? Nearly. Not that Tony was buying the next round - he'd kinda left his wallet in his other body. 

Maybe he couldn't feel anything physically, but he could for damn sure feel disappointment. And then, when he was pretty sure he might've died again of pure fucking melodramatic misery if he'd just been alive to do it, he disappeared again.

He woke up on the floor. And he wondered if this was just what his life was now.

He'd made a promise. Turned out maybe he'd kept it after all, just in the most ludicrous way possible.

\---

"Your room's kinda small."

The door opened and the light turned on and Tony might've had an issue with that given it was straight over his head except his eyes weren't really real and they hadn't been for a really long time. What he had the issue with was that the voice he'd just heard wasn't Peter's. And he'd never been the kind of guy you'd call overly cautious but when the only people he'd seen in the room besides Peter were his nerd friends and his hot aunt and a couple of girls from his French elective who said _bonjour_ like true natives of Paris (Texas), well, maybe he'd developed spidey-senses of his own. Maybe in the weeks and months of days that he'd spent in that room, he'd gotten protective. 

"Yeah, I guess it's the price you pay for not having a roommate?" Peter replied. He closed the door behind them. He sounded really, well, not _un_ like himself, but still not totally like himself, not like the way was with MJ when she tried to get him interested in saving the world by planting trees or Ned when they spent six hours in some MMORPG instead of studying, maybe more like he'd been with...oh. _Oh_. If he'd had insides and not just whatever the fuck he had - light, air, the dark heart of the universe - he'd've felt sick. He really didn't need to see this.

He should've left. He had options - the kid in the next room played pornographic video games half the night, every night, and okay so he didn't need to see a nineteen-year-old compsci major jacking it to huge-boobed anime girls, but maybe he'd've preferred that. Maybe he'd've preferred the girl to the other side who made hours-long phone calls to her boyfriend who was studying in South Korea until the summer. Maybe the guys down the hall who smoked weed and watched horror movies had room for one more, making woooooo ghost noises that they couldn't hear but maybe it would've amused him more than what he was pretty sure was about to happen. He'd figured out a long time ago that there were bounds to where he could go, and they all radiated out from Peter. Or Peter's room, or a combination of the two, since he only seemed to appear when the kid was in a certain spectacularly narrow radius. And he should've walked out through the nearest wall or jumped out of the window into oncoming traffic 'cause it wasn't like he'd hit anything anyhow, and maybe a reset would take him past this moment. But he didn't. Like a stupid intrusive ass, he didn't. 

He watched Peter pull off his shirt. He'd seen him do it before, but usually he was alone except for his unseen voyeur and Tony was most of the way a gentleman - he turned his back most of the way, most of the time. Maybe the lines had gotten kinda fuzzy somewhere along the way, when Peter couldn't see or hear him, and maybe sometimes he'd seen more than he should. But right at that moment, he watched Peter pull off his shirt. He watched the other guy pull off his own shirt and check Peter out, the fucking asshole. He watched Peter almost fall over taking off his shoes, which was impressive for a guy who hung upside down off of buildings every night of his life and twice on weekends. He watched them take off their pants and inside his head Tony was telling himself, _you're a pervert, Stark, you're a great big undead pervert, you're going to leave, you're going to get the hell up and leave, you're going to go listen to Carly next door talk to her sweetheart in Seoul while the kid hangs a sock on the doorknob or whatever the cool kids do these days when they're getting laid_. But he didn't. He kind of got hung up on the _getting laid_ part. Because damn if he hadn't seen Peter Parker do everything except that and the thought nagged at him till he was pretty sure: when Peter stretched out on the bed and reached into the nightstand for a big box of condoms still in the cellophane, he was working on popping his cherry. 

The nameless other guy was tall and built kinda like a swimmer with Nordic blond hair and bright blue eyes and sure, he looked good. Tony's always been man enough to admit when another guy is easy on the eye, and the guy was easy on the eye, except he wasn't really looking at him. He was looking at Peter, lying back, propped halfway up on his forearms, blushing like he couldn't tell how fucking great he looked, even next to the guy who looked like he'd give Thor a run for his money in the Norse God stakes. Hell, who knew, maybe Goldilocks had a brother who wasn't a psychopath and liked to swim a few laps but apparently had issues getting through plastic wrappers. Tony watched Peter take the box from him and tear it open - he looked damn near ready to just tear it in half in the end but he got there and swimmer guy took one out of it. He tore it open, and he started rolling it on, and...he stopped. He frowned. Peter frowned. Tony frowned. 

"Is this a joke?" the guy asked. He waved both hands in the general direction of his dick, which was wearing the rubber kinda like a sack. 

"I mean...you said extra large? You were pretty clear?"

"I can't believe you, Parker. This is some dumb shit." 

"The girl at the drugstore asked if I was sure and you really seemed sure, so..."

Tony groaned. He could just imagine the girl's skeptical look between the box and the guy in front of her: Peter Parker...box of prophylactics fit for a bull...Peter Parker. 

The guy took it off - it was pretty much hanging on by a thread anyhow - and dropped it right on the center of Peter's chest. Peter let it sit there. 

"I can't wear this," the guy said. 

"I, uh. I mean, Justin, I don't have any others. I don't keep a really big supply on hand"

"You were meant to take care of this." 

"I did! It's just you..." He stopped himself short. He kinda smile-winced up at him and crossed his arms over his chest, realized the condom was still there and dropped it on the floor, then crossed his arms again, not in an angry way, just...nervous-looking. Self-conscious-looking, and Tony hated that. He kinda hated Justin. He kinda reminded him of another Justin, who'd been just as much of an asshole if not as well built. He guessed he might've been better hung, though, or at least have had the good sense not to send the guy he wanted to sleep with to buy a size that just wouldn't fit. 

"Look, can we try again? We should try again, right? I'll pick up another box. I could go now? It's--"

"Don't you think the moment's gone?" Justin sighed. Then he started jerking off right then and there, suddenly, kneeling between Peter's thighs, like that shit was normal. Peter watched, wide-eyed, apparently as surprised as Tony was, and it really didn't take long - Tony guessed maybe the guy just didn't care about making it last, just about getting it over with, and he came all over Peter's belly with a grunt and a jerk and a splash of semen that made Tony scowl. Maybe he shouldn't've been watching. Okay, he really shouldn't've been watching. But if he'd had to watch, the guy really could've done better, especially since the next thing he did was get up, put his clothes on, and head for the door. He was missing basic goddamn sex etiquette. Sextiquette. Whatever. 

"Tomorrow?" Justin asked, standing in the doorway, holding the door open like it didn't matter that anyone walking by could see inside. No one did walk by, not as far as Tony could see, but it looked like Peter understood because he reached for the tissues by the bed and started wiping himself off with his back half-turned. 

"Sure," Peter replied. "Sure, um. Yeah, I'll be here. Around nine?" 

"Yeah, just no more pranks, Parker," Justin said, then he frowned at him. "You're so weird. Has anyone ever told you you're weird?"

He didn't wait for an answer; he just walked out and swung the door closed behind him. And, as Peter grimaced and wrapped his hand around his still-stiff dick, that was when Tony vanished. It was maybe just in time, 'cause what he was starting to say pseudo-aloud about Peter's new boyfriend wasn't a hundred percent complimentary - it started in _jack_ and ended in _ass_ and boy, did it not stop there. It was maybe just in time, 'cause he really didn't need to watch Peter getting off with a thin veneer of some other guy's jizz on his skin. And the fact was, Tony knew himself: he'd've told himself not to, and he'd've hated himself after, but he'd've watched. We would've absolutely watched. 

He was still processing the whole sordid affair when he woke up on the rug. Again. Like always, because this was just what his life was now, watching Peter Parker not quite get screwed in a creaky bed in a college dorm room or sometimes, for an extra special treat, listening to him mutter his way through his shitty bioinformatics homework. Sometimes Peter put on a movie while he worked and Tony sat on the floor like a toddler and watched that instead of talking to himself. Sometimes he stood reading over his shoulder, trying not to chant _turn the page! turn the page! turn the page!_ except the times when Peter went ahead and did, or look over his math proofs and tell him exactly where he'd gotten it wrong except hey, it wasn't like he could hear him, and chances were that even if he could've, he'd've just ignored him anyway - Tony had always really admired how he wanted to get there himself, no shortcuts. Except maybe the time with the suit and it wasn't like Tony wouldn't've done the same damn thing in his shoes. Of course, now he didn't have shoes, 'cause apparently the universe had seen fit to give him a shirt and pants but no footwear and even if Peter's sneakers had fit him, he couldn't've put them on. He couldn't even nudge them, and my God, he'd tried. If this was some _Ghost_ bullshit, apparently he was no Patrick Swayze. Months of this shit hadn't gotten him anywhere at all except Peter's floor.

He missed shoes. He missed pizza. He missed his suits and his workshop and his bots and staying up all night tinkering with shit until it maybe kinda worked or else blew up like a fiery disaster and got him doused with the extinguisher again. He missed his hot ex-wife who had all the sense in the family, and his crazy-smart daughter, and talking to people who might have talked back at some point and not just stared blankly through his chest or hooked up with some dickish dudebro while he was in the room. He grimaced. Turned out he really didn't like that guy.

He was still processing what had happened when the door opened and jeez, he was pretty sure the universe just hated the pants right off of him because there they were again, like four seconds had passed for him when it was a day for them: Peter and Justin, making out like not-quite-teenagers as they came in. Not _quite_ teenagers. Jesus. Of all the ambitions he'd had in life, watching two guys who were technically not teenagers get down and dirty was really not high on the list. It was someplace below colonic irrigation and root canal. Or dying. Or coming back and then re-dying, he guessed, because it wasn't like he was alive, unlike Peter and Justin who were pulling off pieces of their own clothing and each other's like a weird dance or they were experiencing spontaneous underwear combustion. Tony would've really liked to've been able to introduce his head to the nearest wall without it just floating through it like Casper the Friendly Voyeur, but at the same time...yeah, there was no way he wasn't watching. He might've hated it, and himself, and God and the universe and everything, but there was no way he wasn't watching. 

When Peter lay down, the bed squeaked. When Justin joined him on it, kneeling in between his thighs, the bed squeaked. When Peter unwrapped the new box, the bed squeaked, and when Justin stroked himself till he was hard enough to put on one, and ehrn Peter turned onto his hands and knees...yeah, the bed squeaked. It was driving Tony completely up the goddamn wall and it didn't stop but that wasn't the worst part because he could've coped with three hundred thousand years of squeaky bed if he hadn't had to sit there on Peter's dorm room floor and watch a guy who looked like a dancer from a Scandinavian boyband finger Peter Parker's ass. 

To be fair to the guy with his stupid good-looking face and great abs, he didn't skimp on the lube and it maybe didn't seem like _terrible_ sex, at least not the worst Tony had ever had himself - he could've taken his time a little more, sure, and he could've taken advantage of the kid's flexibility to do it face to face, he could've probably gotten Peter off four times before he even put it in him with that whole superpowered, superhealing schtick, but he guessed that last part would've gotten pretty messy and chances were Justin didn't know Peter was Spider-Man - he just didn't see like the kind of guy you'd tell something like that. It was just kinda sad that he was pretty sure it was Peter's first time. With a guy, at least. It was kinda sad that Justin shoved it in and did him with his hands on his own lower back like a terrible amateur porno, and when he was done, which seemed to be pretty quickly if Tony really had to try to quantify it, he just pulled out and tossed the condom into the trash and patted Peter on the remarkably pert ass as he stood up. The damn bed squeaked as he did. It squeaked again as Peter sat himself up.

"That was nice, Parker," the jackass said, and he pulled on his jeans. "See you in class Thursday?" And he didn't bother waiting for an answer - he just waltzed on out of the door like Peter wasn't sitting there on his bed with an erection neither of them had touched so far. The door swung shut behind him.

Peter sighed, and Tony watched him blot between his lubey cheeks with a handful of tissues and a scowl on his face - Tony felt like telling him it could've been a whole hell of a lot worse, given some of his own lube-related disasters in his misspent youth, though he guessed he couldn't really call it _mis_ spent, just...really, really spent. He had some pretty good memories, not so much of his first time taking it because that had been a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing, early twenties, kinda drunk, should've known better, and maybe he'd never straight-up regretted it, but that wasn't to say it couldn't've been better. He couldn't even remember the guy's name, though he was pretty sure he was going to remember Peter's first: Inconsiderate Jackass Justin. 

Peter shuffled to the edge of the bed and he sat there with his head in his hands for a minute, like he wasn't totally sure he should've done what he'd just done, and it turned out Tony hated that almost as much as the guy he'd done it with. He _hated_ it, because he knew he could've made it better for him - jeez, what he'd had hadn't exactly set a high bar. It wasn't like Tony was exactly lacking in experience, and he was pretty good at figuring out what was working and what wasn't on the fly, and damn, the guy hadn't even kissed him once they'd gotten to the bed. Tony would've kissed him. Peter seemed like the kind of guy who'd like that - the slow sort of kiss, not too much tongue, fingers in his hair and on his skin everywhere he could reach just till he was getting to the edge of breathless, though who knew when _breathless_ came for a guy like Spider-Man. They'd never gotten around to systematically testing his powers that way. Tony frowned. Really, not _that_ way. 

He'd've smiled a whole lot, he thought, and told the kid how great he was, and seen if he could get him off just with the feel of his dick in his ass and his hands on his thighs. If he couldn't, he figured that was fine - he'd've gone ahead and put his mouth on him. He could see Peter's dick, his manhood, his member, his goddamn turgid rod, from where he was sitting on the floor across the room and he could imagine it with his hand wrapped around the base and his mouth wrapped around the tip. He wouldn't've stood a chance, he thought, not after that shabby display with Justin the Jackass, not when Tony Stark applied himself. A few flicks of his tongue and he'd've been done in no time. He wondered if Peter preferred a guy who spat or swallowed, or if he'd've pulled back and done it on Tony's chest, or his abs, or...hell, he'd've let him do it on his face if he wanted that, no big deal, just a smile and a laugh and a date with a hot soapy washcloth once the kid got over blushing like prom night. He'd've kissed him again, after, fucking ruined him with kisses. The kid wouldn't've known what had hit him.

He'd've satisfied him, he thought. No way he would've left him still hard as a stalactite or a stalagmite or whatever the fuck kind of mineral formation it was that he meant and fled the room like he was missing tonight's _Bachelor_. And fuck, just... _fuck_. That was the moment it hit him, metaphorically if not physically because nothing in the universe was hitting him physically, not even the great big goddamn clue-by-four that had hurtled at him from the direction of the bed. From the direction of Peter Parker, looking miserable with his dick out.

That was the moment he got it. And maybe he couldn't feel anything - not the floor, not the desk, for damn sure not Peter - but that didn't mean he couldn't feel the weight of his own crushing fricking realization. 

"It should've been me," he said, and he shifted up onto his knees. He shifted closer, ducked his head, tried to catch Peter's eye like that would get him anyplace at all, let alone fast. "Jesus, kid. I should've been here. And it should've been me, not him." 

And he watched Peter rake his hair back with both hands; it had been getting longer again, curling against his forehead the way it had used to way back when. He watched him sit up there right on the edge of the creaky-ass bed and spread his thighs, and tuck his calves back so he was propped there with his toes. He watched him wrap one hand around his still-hard dick and dip the other down to cup his balls and if he'd've been a guy and not a ghost, Tony would've swallowed really hard and taken a really deep damn breath and run his hands over the smooth insides of Peter's thighs. He'd've leaned in and kissed the flushed pink tip of his dick, licked his lips, done it again, rinse, repeat, until his mouth tasted like him. He'd've mouthed his way down the length of his shaft, looked up at him, smiled, really _smiled_ , 'cause then maybe he'd've smiled right back. He wanted him to smile. Tony's chest ached with how bad he wanted him to smile. Of course, the look on his face said maybe he was about to do the opposite, if by that he meant 'burst into tears while jerking off'. 

He couldn't feel the room around him, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel himself. He could feel himself. And he could _feel_ himself, nudge nudge wink wink, all innuendo absolutely intentional just like it always had been, even when it hadn't been because he'd always owned it afterwards. He could feel his thighs when he squeezed them just above his knees. He could feel his lip when he bit it. He could feel what should've been his heart as he watched Peter spread his thighs a little wider and tilt his head back like the ceiling tiles were suddenly the most fascinating thing on the planet, or maybe counting them was. He could feel his dick starting to strain against the track pants he wasn't even sure he'd owned when he'd been alive, though frankly he'd been finding crap he hadn't known he'd owned in his closet for years, like the hot pink mankini that looked like it would spend the whole time riding up into the great unknown and a powder blue suit that may or may not have actually belonged to Elvis. But he could feel himself get hard. He could feel himself getting hard _because of Peter_.

He'd been telling himself he couldn't take his clothes off - he'd tried once or twice, out of deep and abiding boredom, and found them just reappeared back in place the second they hit the ground. He couldn't take them off but he guessed that wasn't the whole truth: he could rearrange his clothes. And if he'd really been there and not just in perverted spirit, he'd've said it was a terrible idea, but he wasn't there. He was probably in the ground someplace, or maybe he'd crumbled into dust right there on the battlefield where the compound had used to be, or maybe they'd donated his body to science or shot it into the sun, who knew, but he wasn't in Peter Parker's bedroom so what did it matter if it was a bad idea? So he shifted just enough to slide the track pants down over his ass, and over his hips, down to catch behind his knees. He slid his shirt up till it caught underneath his arms and tucked it back so it was tight just underneath his collarbones. Then he sat back on his heels with his knees apart and he looked down at his dick, like maybe it'd be different to how he remembered it, like maybe he'd've grown six tentacles in place of a penis or turned anatomically correct as a Ken doll. But his dick was there, just like he'd left it except he hadn't been sporting a jaunty boner with a twinkle to the tip while taking his dying breath, so maybe not exactly how he'd left it. 

He grimaced. He wrapped one hand around it. And it felt good, like it always had, except maybe he'd've liked to've blown a little cool air over the tip but air was a thing of the past where Anthony Stark was now concerned. Maybe he'd've liked to've been able to feel the throb of his pulse in it when he held it tight and really, he had questions about specter anatomy if he didn't need blood or a heartbeat or any kind of a normal human vascular system to get it up. But it felt good anyhow, when he tucked his fingers over the head and squeezed it up against his palm, when he pressed the tip through the loose O of his fingers and bit back something like a groan. And maybe he'd've said he couldn't believe what he was doing but really, next to his currently inexplicable pseudo-resurrection, a bit of light onanism seemed perfectly logical. 

Peter stroked himself, sitting there on the bed, so Tony stroked himself, kneeling on the floor. Peter did it just a little faster and a little tighter; Tony followed suit. Peter grabbed the lube and he slicked himself up and it turned out Tony didn't need to - he could feel himself, and he could _feel_ himself, but it turned out he couldn't _hurt_ himself, and he was pretty sure the afterlife didn't have a clinic for dumb sex-related injuries anyhow. He reached down and squeezed his balls when Peter did it, too. He thumbed the slit in his tip when Peter did. He watched him, really closely, like he'd never seen a guy jerking off before even though he really, really had, and he kinda wondered why he'd never really seen Peter do it, not in all the time he'd been popping up inside his room like the Ghost of Voyeurs Past. He guessed maybe he did that kind of thing in the showers down the hall, which was maybe easier than cleaning the sheets every time he woke up with morning wood. But whatever. _Whatever_. Peter stroked himself, his cock slick with lube and flushed and shiny, and all Tony could think was jeez, he'd've liked to've slid his own right up against it, wrapped his hand around the two of them and jerked them both together, side by side. Maybe Peter would've even liked that - it wasn't like he'd been subtle about his teenage crush all those wasted years before. Maybe they would've both liked it. It wasn't like he was a teenager anymore, after all. Just. _Just_. 

Peter stroked himself and Tony stroked himself and he could see Peter's face, how his mouth had dropped open so when he breathed in he could hear it like he was coming up for air. He could see how taut the muscles in his thighs had gotten, how they jerked, how his back arched, how he reached one hand back to the mattress to grip there so maybe he wouldn't fall straight off the bed and have to rely on his spidey-powers to heal up the resulting bruised boner. He could hear how his breath hitched like he was trying not to burst right into tears while he got himself off but he _did_ get himself off. While Tony was watching, he grimaced and he bared his teeth and he did something that looked like it might strain every single muscle in his entire body and he came, in spurts that he didn't quite manage to catch against his hand and dripped onto the crappy rug Tony had woken up on maybe a hundred times by then. Maybe two hundred. Maybe three. Tony wasn't sure about that, but he was sure about it being one of the single hottest things he'd ever seen. 

Tony paused then, still on his knees, hands resting on his thighs. He just looked at Peter sitting there with his dick slowly starting to soften and a look on his face that said he had no idea what to do next because he'd had no idea what he was doing in the first place. All that time listening to him mutter about cell anatomy and stochastic processes, waiting for Peter to come in through the door or Spidey to come in through the window, God, either he'd developed Stockholm syndrome or he'd been kinda slow to catch up because it should've been obvious, even to Tony. He hadn't thought of the kid as an actual kid in a really long time. He didn't think of him like some weird-ass ghost roommate, like they were living in a supernatural sitcom. He didn't think of him like someone he'd worked with once, or as a mentee, like he'd gone ahead and created Tony Stark's Internship for Apprentice Superheroes. He got that dumb warm feeling in his chest when he thought about him that made him roll his eyes because wow, if he'd been real it would've been a really bad idea because damn if the kid didn't deserve better than him. But he wasn't real. So it wasn't a bad idea. 

"God, kid," he said, still kneeling there in front of him. He gestured at him vaguely, aware that he was smiling but he couldn't decide if it was wry or sad or sorry or something else completely. "You're great. You turned out so... _great_. And really hot. Like, _really_ hot. Way too hot for discount Thor with the ego bigger than his penis." He shook his head and then trailed the back of his fingers up over the top of his dick, from base to tip, then down over the underside to squeeze at his balls. He chuckled. "You know, I swear to God I don't regularly jerk off on people's seventies aesthetic floor coverings. I wish you could see what you've reduced me to here."

Then Peter raised his head. Peter tilted his chin up and he looked at him. He looked right at him with an expression on his face like Tony had just died again, except he couldn't be looking at him, except Tony's not-quite-insides went tight and anxious like actually, maybe, just maybe, Peter was looking at him. Maybe he was looking at him and not at the clock on the wall behind him because maybe he was planning to go out on patrol, or like his phone on the desk had lit up with some Instwitterbook message, or any of a hundred other things that weren't _Suddenly, Tony_. And he figured that was the case because Peter looked away again, down at his hands. He flexed them, clenched his fists and released them again while he did this thing with his face like he was trying not to cry or trying not to put his fist through the nearest wall and Tony wasn't sure which because there existed the possibility that he could do either. Or both. Maybe simultaneously. It was an odd look. He was pretty sure Jerkass Justin wasn't the only reason for that. 

Tony would've sighed if he'd had breath. As it was, all he did was shake his head and smile and say, "I really wish you could see me, kid." 

Then Peter took a breath. He lifted his head. He looked straight at him, looked him straight in the eye, and this time Tony was absolutely sure he meant it. 

"Mr. Stark," Peter said, like it hurt him to get the words out, or at least to get Tony's name out. He blinked; tears ran down his face and Tony's empty chest fucking clenched, just like that day back on the battlefield. "You know, I really wish I _couldn't_ see you."

And when Tony opened his mouth to say _are you talking to me?_ like his best-worst De Niro impression, or _have you seen me all this time and just ignored me?_ or maybe just _oh God, Pete, you can really see me?_ he vanished into the ether just like he always did. 

He woke up again on the fucking rug. His clothes were back in place, and Peter wasn't there. 

He could've cried, but he laughed instead. He'd know he was there all along.

\---

"You're not real," Peter said four visits later, as he walked in through the door. 

"You're not real," Peter said nine visits later, as he threw his bag down by the desk. 

"You're not real," Peter said thirteen visits later, as he lay awake in bed. 

And every time, Tony told him, "Trust me, kid. It's me. I am." But there was nothing he could do to convince him. He was pretty sure if he was dead, this was hell - maybe God had caught him admiring the kid's ass in his new suit or something, once upon a time, and now his punishment was being ignored for the rest of time. Which seemed kinda melodramatic, but he was admittedly sketchy on the finer points of Dante. 

He seemed to be there more often. He seemed to be there _every day_ , and sometimes all night, and he'd lie there on the shitty rug he wasn't sure if he wanted to frame as art or burn to cinders and wonder what the fuck he was meant to do now. He'd spent so many nights lying on the floor by the bed in the night and talking for _hours_ , about Pepper, or Morgan, his mom and dad, the times he'd hit Vegas with Rhodey, anything that had crossed his mind, 'cause he'd felt like he'd wanted him to know. He'd felt like he'd wanted him to know what a shitty, dickish person he'd been before he'd gotten shrapnel in his chest and then sometimes after that, just so someone knew all the crap he'd done or tried to do over the years. He'd felt like maybe it would help 'cause if Peter knew the kind of guy he was then maybe his little case of hero-worship you could probably see from space would take the hit it ought to have years ago. 

Now though, it felt kinda harder to speak, so he lay there in the dark and listened to Peter breathing, listened to the way it changed as he slipped off to sleep, and told himself at least the world hadn't ended. 

"Could you just tell Morgan I miss her?" Tony said, maybe four days after. Peter just looked at him for a second, kinda wounded and sharp, and Tony shrugged. "I know, I'm not real, why would you get her hopes up." And he didn't reply, but he was pretty sure that was at least part of what was on his mind. 

"Look, even if you hate me now, could you just call Bruce?" he asked, on maybe the sixth or seventh night, and Peter gave him a look like that was the last thing in the world he was about to do. That was the point where _getting hopes up_ intersected with _he'll think I'm a fucking lunatic_ , and Tony couldn't say he didn't understand. Except then he looked away and muttered something to himself that Tony really didn't understand and for a second he didn't get it, not at all - hadn't weirder things happened to both of them before this? What made Peter so damn sure he wasn't real? Maybe he gets it now, but he didn't then. There was just no way he could have. 

Justin didn't come back, which Tony guessed was at least a small mercy. He heard Peter on the phone with May, telling her his grades were great as he forced a smile onto his face; Tony guessed at least he was still doing well in school if nothing else. And sometimes he'd catch him looking, sometimes he'd catch him frowning, sometimes he'd catch him with red rims around his eyes like he'd been bawling out his fucking eyes and all that he could think to say was, "I'm sorry, kid. If I knew how to leave, I would." He meant it, too, which was almost a surprise, except he knew he'd never meant to fuck things up like this. He'd meant to save the world and say goodbye the best way he knew how to; now here he was, still hanging on. 

He said, "I should've never made that promise," because he'd never meant it like a curse.

Peter looked at him, from his laptop on the desk, lit up by the shitty backlight but fuck, he still looked great. Tony wasn't sure when that had happened, or if he'd always looked that way. 

"Never let go?" Peter said, and his face fucking crumpled. He swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and Tony would've taken thirty thousand years of magma to avoid that ever happening again. He'd've rather blinked out of existence and been gone for good if he couldn't make it better, and it wasn't like he was finding new and exciting ways to manifest. He was just as goddamn incorporeal as he'd been the first day he'd arrived but Jesus Christ, the kid needed a hug more than anyone he'd ever known. 

Nineteen visits, twenty-four visits, thirty-one: Peter stopped answering at all, so Tony just stopped talking, like maybe it was easier that way. And then, one night, in the dark while the traffic kept on rushing by outside, while the cool kids in the hall had too much to drink, Tony said, "Why don't you believe me?"

Peter sighed. "Because the real you never wanted..." He took a deep breath. He sighed again. He shifted, and the bed creaked, and Tony had heard it do that so many times by then that it didn't even matter anymore. "Because the real you never wanted me," he said. And Tony had no idea how to respond to that, but that was fine: he woke up on the floor again. 

The rug smelled almost as day-after-Halloween-candy-spill as it looked, like the unholy union of candy corn and Jolly Ranchers. Maybe it had gotten vacuumed pretty regularly - he'd lain there like an ass and let the cleaners run the vacuum cleaner through him as if maybe it could suck away his dark, dramatic soul. Maybe it had gotten vacuumed but he was pretty sure that it had never gotten cleaned, and it tickled his nose and...fuck. _Fuck_.

He sat up. The room still had no goddamn clock, because of course that was sensible and of course he'd never have done the same thing in any room he'd had at all, but he knew he was alone and he knew he was...naked. When he put his hands on the floor, he could feel the fabric of the shitty rug and his face hurt where it had been smushed against the floorboard and when he stood up, fuck, when he looked in the mirror he could see the line across his cheek from where the floorboards met. He wasn't blue. He wasn't transparent. And when he pressed his palm against the mirror, it was cold and hard and his fingertips squeaked against it when he dragged them down just like they ought to. _Fuck_. He was really there. He was really real. Everything felt... Everything _felt_.

Frankly, he almost passed out standing right there in front of the closet door mirror. Four years. Nearly five years. Nearly _five years_. And something in his head told him maybe that was it, maybe that was what the stones wanted: he hadn't snapped to bring the people back, sure, that was Bruce, but that was at least part of what they'd been fighting for. Maybe they hadn't taken everything from him. Maybe they'd just taken from him what they couldn't take from good ol' Professor Hulk. Or maybe that was a steaming pile of crap the size of New York State and the stones were just stones, and they'd had no plan at all. 

He thought about calling Pepper, calling Bruce, calling Strange, calling anyone whose number he could remember and saying, "Hey, so that whole death thing...false alarm." And okay, so there wasn't a landline in Peter's dorm room, but he was pretty sure he could've walked out into the corridor and impressed upon some impressionable college kid the importance of him borrowing their cell for fifteen seconds, given he was Tony Stark. He was pretty sure he was still Tony Stark, at least, even if he was legally dead, but he'd never been much of a lawyer and it wasn't time to start right then, but...well, he was naked. It wouldn't've been a great first impression, he was pretty sure, running out of Peter's room in the buff and asking pretty please, Mr. Co-ed, can I use your phone?

The floor felt really hard under his feet as he opened the closet door. The closet smelled like dust and fabric softener and Peter's shitty college kid deodorant that also kind of smelled like heaven. And there were track pants right there, so he grabbed them and pulled them on, and they were four inches too short but that really didn't seem like the salient point. And he scanned the shelves, ran his hands over boxes and gave himself a goddamn papercut but wow, that was something, found a photo frame turned face down and picked it up. It was him in the photo. It was _them_ in the photo. That dumbass certificate-topsy-turvy shot he'd kept because why wouldn't he want to be reminded of that, how the kid had looked at him like he hung the fricking moon and couldn't (probably) just fly there. Hell, if he'd asked him to, he might've taken him with him. 

There was a bag next to it; Tony picked it up and opened it, like the gigantic jackass he was, and found one of his own damn shirts, an old one, and he'd got this idea in his head right away, like maybe he'd even been there, that Pepper had probably told him _take whatever you like, he'd've wanted you to have something to remember him by_. It was just like Peter to go for the photo and a stupid band tee, and he slipped it on, and the fabric was familiar but like it was all new, like everything was new, like his lungs had never breathed before, like his fingertips had never felt the fraying hem of his old shirt, like his muscles knew how to stand, and walk, and raise his arms, but he'd never really done it. He guessed maybe he hadn't. Maybe this body wasn't the original and they really had shot him into the sun, and he would've liked to've gotten to the bottom of it, he really would, would've liked to've gotten into a four-day argument with Bruce about organic chem and Dr. Houdini about magical metaphysics or what-the-hell-ever, but he didn't have a chance right at that moment. Because the door opened. The action of it swinging back blew air over his bare face and his bare forearms and made him shiver. 

He expected him to notice, but maybe his spidey-senses were off. Peter walked right by him and dumped his bag by the desk with the usual audible thud but this time Tony could feel it in the floorboards underneath his feet. And Tony watched him moving around the room just like he always did, taking off his sneakers, tossing his jacket over the back of his chair, his eyes just following him and following him like any moment he might see he couldn't see right through him. He didn't notice. Tony rubbed his face. He took a breath, and jeez it felt great to breathe, even if the room smelled like a mix of Axe and ramen and a vague sense of near-finals despair. 

"Hey, kid," he said. 

Peter didn't even look up from his phone. "You're not real," he replied. 

"I am." Tony shrugged. He threw his arms wide, like _here I am_. "I mean, this time I _really_ am." 

And then Peter looked at him, just for a moment, before he looked away again. And then Peter looked at him again, slower, closer, frowning. He dropped his phone; maybe that was how he'd smashed the screen. He rubbed his face. He frowned a little harder. He balled his hands into fists. 

"Mr. Stark?" he said, and it was like the day he'd died all over again, except not. Except really, really not. 

Tony strode right over there and fuck it, he went straight in for the hug. He wrapped his arms around him so damn tight he wasn't even sure he could breathe himself, never mind the kid. And Peter's arms went tight around him, too, around his waist, and all he could say, over and over, against the crook of Tony's neck, was just, "Oh my God, Mr. Stark. Oh my God, it's really you." 

If it was a new body, it seemed kinda apt that the last person he'd hugged in one was the first person he'd hugged in the other, even if Peter hung on so damn tight he was pretty sure that much more pressure and his ribs would start to give. He started pulling away and Peter jerked back suddenly so Tony wasn't sure if it was too much or not enough. Maybe all the dumbass things he'd said over the months really had made him hate him, but the look on Peter's face really was not hate.

"I'm sorry," Peter said. "I didn't mean to..." He winced. He rubbed his mouth and jeez, all Tony wanted to do was kiss it.

"Are you trying to say you didn't mean to collapse my lungs or you didn't mean to act like I wasn't here all this time?"

Peter smiled at the same time he grimaced, which basically just meant he bared his teeth like he was in agony. "Both?" he said. So Tony did the logical thing: he hugged him again. 

"This feels great," Tony said, because it really, really felt great. Peter was warm, and solid, and Tony could feel the lines of muscles through his back under the fabric of his shirt that was like some shitty knockoff he'd ordered off of Wish, and he smelled like cheap shampoo and his hair was damp but from the nearly-summer rain outside, not from the shower. Peter pressed his palms flat to Tony's back, right down over the waistband of his purloined pants, and he breathed, and he breathed, and maybe he kinda shook just a bit, like relief, like regret, like disbelief, or all of that together. It really felt great so he told him again, "This feels great, Pete. _You_ feel great." 

"I guess so do you, Mr. Stark?" Peter replied. "Feel great, I mean. Like I remember. Except you were wearing your armor last time and then you kinda died. That didn't feel great." He tightened his grip. "Look, can you please not die again? Could you maybe just... stay?"

Tony pulled back. Not far. Not far at all, 'cause he had no intention of going far, just far enough to slip his hands up to Peter's shoulders. He squeezed there, rubbed there, like maybe he was trying for some locker room pep talk bullshit except it didn't turn out that way. It turned out like his thumbs finding the edge of Peter's collar and brushing against bare skin, and Peter shivered. He made that face, that one Tony remembered, the _I really don't get it_ face, the _do you really mean it?_ face. And when Peter lifted his hands again, slowly, with a tremble like maybe he'd just lifted up a building and not just hugged a guy almost to the point of requiring medical assistance...well, that was the point when Tony knew. If the face was _do you really mean it?_ and the shaky way he reached for Tony's waist was _can I? is this what you want, too?_ then the answer was a resounding _yes_ to both questions. 

"Kid, I think I'm gonna kiss you now," Tony said. "Y'know, just so you're not startled by it and go cling to a wall or kick me in the junk. I'm gonna lay one on you. Is that good with you?" Peter stared. Peter stared like Tony had taken up Swahili in the afterlife when he knew _voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?_ was more his speed. Except Tony was pretty sure that wasn't something he'd been asking the girls he knew from his French class. "You can just nod your head. Shake your head. Kick me out into the hall and tell your aunt I'm being inappropriate. I mean, I know you're Spider-Man and all, but she's the Parker that really scares me." 

Peter smiled. Peter nodded. "Yeah, me too," he said. Then he took two handfuls of the front of Tony's shirt, like maybe he'd realized he'd grabbed it from his closet and he wanted to take it straight back. Peter looked down at his hands, then he looked up at Tony's face. "You want to kiss me?" he asked. 

Tony shrugged. He ran his hands up to Peter's jaw and brushed his cheeks with both his thumbs. "Yeah, I really do," he said. 

And Peter nodded. So he did. 

\---

He wakes on the floor. Not _the_ floor; he wakes on _a_ floor. 

His face isn't smushed against a floorboard - he's lying on his back. He can't see the diabolical rug he'd decided he either wanted to blast into a billion pieces or steal for the bedroom when he gets his new place, once he's declared undead. Except maybe undead isn't the word he wants, but it's the word Peter's started to use. 

He can feel the carpet underneath one hand and he can't feel the other hand at all - turns out Peter fell asleep on his right arm. And, for once, he knows precisely how he's gotten there: it's not magic, and it wasn't copious amounts of alcohol. The bed just seemed a little wrong last night. When he grabbed a blanket and migrated to the hotel room floor, Peter went along with him. Now when he tousles Peter's hair, he smiles but doesn't quite wake up.

It's been four days since he got back. Since he really got back, not just that halfway crap where he couldn't even flick a bottle cap or possess Whoopi Goldberg, which he guesses might've been kind of awkward anyway. He remembers the big to-do when he called Pepper, who didn't pass out but did curse a blue streak right in front of Morgan, and then Morgan got on the video call like, "Dad? Is that you?" and maybe he had a tear in his eye when he told her, "Yeah, sweetheart, it's me." Peter was hovering; Morgan waved at him and Peter waved back. Then she handed him back to Pep.

Seemed like everyone wanted to poke and prod and generally treat him like a lab rat, except they wound up in one of Tony's old labs in the tower he could've sworn he'd sold but hey, he guessed the Avengers couldn't use a crater as a base. He sat on an exam table while big green Bruce ran scans with an actual scanner and Strange ran scans with his weird-ass glowing hands, and between the two of them they came up with basically one thing: he was Tony Stark, in the flesh, but fuck if they knew where he'd come from. Everything they knew about how shit had gone down with Thanos tallied, so chances were it wasn't some residual time heist crap, though who knew when that might come back to bite them in the ass. And all the time, Peter hung around, helping out or just hanging back and sometimes Tony looked up, across the room, and caught him looking. When he flashed Peter a smile, Peter ducked his head to try to hide the way he smiled back. Tony guessed that made sense. After all, he did kinda know what he looked like naked. 

Tony remembers kissing him, that first time, back in Peter's dorm. He remembers his hands cupping his jaw and how Peter tore his shirt he was so damn nervous, like he still wasn't totally convinced that he was real, but then Tony pressed his mouth to his. Tony kissed him, just like he'd thought he would: slow, not too much tongue, fingers sliding up into his hair. He kissed him till he was right on the edge of breathless then pulled back just far enough to smile. 

"That okay?" he asked. 

Peter's eyes went kinda wide. "I mean, the Mona Lisa's okay," he said. "That was something else."

Tony laughed and he kissed him again. Then he kissed him again. Then he kissed him _again_. And when he looked at him, his cheeks were flushed and his fingers had torn straight through the front of his old shirt. When he pulled it off over his head, Peter's eyes went even wider. And okay, so maybe all Tony had really meant by that was he'd go steal something of Peter's that he'd put on instead, but wow, his reaction was something. Peter was stiff in his jeans in the next ten seconds and trying not to look like he might come in his pants just from looking at him. 

"Wow, kid," Tony said. "Is that a web-slinger in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

Peter blushed. He hunched like he'd've kinda liked to just sink into the ground the way Tony had been trying so hard not to for so very, very long. 

"I mean, do you greet all the guys like that?"

Peter seemed to be sinking every lower toward magma and the crushing depths of the Earth.

"I mean, I'm flattered." Tony winced. "I don't mean that. Screw flattery, okay? What I mean is that's really, really hot. I mean that's..." He frowned. "Hey, are you still seeing Justin?"

Peter gave him a weird look. "You mean the guy who I had sex with while you watched and then you told me it should've been you?"

After that Tony was pretty sure his own look matched. "Yeah, that guy," he said. "The one who didn't even have the good manners to give you a reach-around."

Peter almost smiled. He shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm not still seeing Justin." 

His brow furrowed. He lifted his chin. He looked Tony straight in the eye. "It should've been you, Mr. Stark," he said. "I always wanted it to be." 

Tony kissed him again. It was harder this time - he couldn't help it, and Peter didn't seem to mind, not considering how he pulled Tony in, and he pulled his own shirt off, and he seemed to grow new arms 'cause suddenly his hands were everywhere. Tony's new-old body wasn't ready for the way Peter touched the bare skin of his back. He wasn't ready for how it felt when he tugged up Peter's shirt and he got the idea and pulled it off the rest of the way. And jeez, he was hot, hot like the fucking magma he'd been trying so damn hard to avoid, hot like the sun he was half convinced by then that they'd shot his body into, all lean muscles and smooth skin and Jesus Christ, he started getting hard inside his stolen track pants, too. It was obvious in seconds and the wide-eyed way Peter looked at him just made it ten times worse and ten times better because okay, Tony had done stupid shit in his time, and he'd screwed around with twenty-somethings, and he'd been That Guy, but this was Peter. This was the kid who'd held his hand while he'd been dying and cried when he'd made Titanic jokes. Though he guessed maybe _I'll never let go_ kinda deserved the tears. 

Maybe they should've talked about it, but all Tony had done since he'd woken up face-down on Peter's godforsaken rug was talk, and brood, and talk, and brood, and jack off like that was a normal thing to do in the dorm room of your technically-no-longer-teenage protégé. He was kinda done with talking, at least for a little while because he realized _done with talking_ really didn't sound like him in the long run, and he slid his hands down Peter's sides to the waist of his jeans. He unbuckled his belt. He slipped one hand inside. And when he pressed his palm down over the front of Peter's boxers, well. Turned out he hadn't been wrong because six seconds later he came. 

"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry," Peter said, and he tried to step away, but Tony held him there - he understood it was just the illusion of control 'cause Peter would always be so much stronger than him without his armor to level the playing field. 

"Don't apologize, kid," he told him. He curled his fingers around Peter's dick over the fabric of his damp underwear. "I'm gonna do that to you at least another three times before we're done." 

All Peter could say to that was, "Wow." That was pretty much all he could say when they were finished, too. 

Tony took him to bed. Peter tried to get down on his hands and knees on the squeaky bed but Tony raised one eyebrow at him and had him stretch out on his back instead. He had him pull his knees up and expose his hole once he'd passed him the lube in another red-faced moment, and he told him, "Look right here," and flashed two lubey fingers at his eyes before he ran those same two fingers down between his cheeks. Once Tony's fingers were inside him, he looked up at Peter's face and found him biting down on his bottom lip. He watched him as he fingered him, slowly, watched his face and then the muscles tensing through his abs of fricking steel and then the way his dick leaked against his stomach so Tony ducked his head and licked it. That was it; Peter came again, catching Tony right under the chin and dripping down his chest while his hole clenched tight around his fingers. Peter looked like he was about to die from embarrassment but Tony just laughed and grabbed his ruined shirt to wipe himself off, then he went in for round three. 

He lubed his dick. Peter watched him do it, propped up on his forearms, then Tony cursed under his breath; the box of condoms was probably still in the drawer and he leaned over, except Peter caught his wrist. "It's fine, Mr. Stark," he said, still blushing, or blushing again, Tony wasn't quite sure, and Tony felt a thrill run through him as he realized what he was being told. He figured that was fine. He figured that was more than fine. He figured he almost came right then and there at the thought of it. So he shuffled up close. He had Peter pull his knees back up. And he brought the tip of his dick to Peter's rim, and slowly, really slowly, he started to push in. He knew what he was doing; once he was in right to the hilt, still up on his knees, he just stayed still and let Peter's hole pull tight and then relax around the length of him, again and again and again. Peter pulled at the headboard so damn hard Tony thought he might destroy it, and he felt him push his hips down flush against him. He felt him flex down hard, brace himself and do it again, again, till he was fucking himself on Tony's dick. And he came. Again. All over his own stomach, while Tony gripped at his own thighs to keep from following too damn close behind. 

He moved after that. He leaned down, leaned close, damn the awkward angle 'cause Peter leaned up to meet him when he leaned down to kiss him. The way they met pushed him deeper and Peter took a sharp breath in, and Tony did the same, and then he started moving. He pressed his palms tight to the mattress and he rocked his hips. He hooked one of Peter's calves over his shoulders and he pushed in deeper. The bed squeaked and Tony laughed and Peter held on tight to Tony's biceps and Tony fucked him, harder, not totally sure how it had come to this except really, he knew why. He'd lived with Peter Parker for months, every day, seen him at his best and worst, seen him exactly as he was, and he wanted him all the more because of it. He wanted him because he knew exactly who he was. Somehow, knowing Tony in return hadn't scared Peter off at all. 

"You're incredible," Tony told him, as he fucked him, as he shoved in right to the hilt and made him groan out loud with it. He figured Peter's senses were tuned in; he blew across his collarbone and made him shiver, sucked at his neck and made him moan, bore back up onto his knees with Peter's thighs draped over his and flexed in deep with his hands gripping Peter's hips and fuck, the way the muscles in Tony's thighs started to strain, the way his heart was pounding, the way he bared his teeth and clenched his jaw to try to hold it just a little longer...apparently that kind of did it for Peter. He came again, as Tony stroked him, and jeez that was enough for Tony, too. He came in him, bucking deep one final time as he stroked Peter's overstimulated dick with the backs of his own sticky fingers. 

"You're incredible," he said again, his voice kinda raw and still half-breathless, while he was still inside him. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, okay? Not even me. Not even you." 

And Peter nodded, almost like he understood, but that was probably just the oxytocin talking. Tony figured he'd just remind him about that later. He reminded him last night. More than once. 

Peter seemed to understand that Tony couldn't stay there after. He seemed fine when he asked to borrow his phone, and a shirt, and a twenty for a cab. When he didn't seem to understand was when Tony said, "So, are you coming?" He blinked at him, owlishly, that way that said, _wait, what did you just say?_ Then he grabbed his jacket and shoved his feet into his sneakers and a half hour later they were in the tower. It's still new now, too, but he thinks maybe it's starting to sink in. And it's new for Tony, too, but he tells himself that's fine - if ever there was a time to turn over a new leaf and be a better man somehow, it's now. The things he knows Peter's been through...hell, he wants to be the one that he can turn to, not the one who's ever used against him. Never again. 

He doesn't remember what death felt like. He remembers dying: it felt like nothing at all, unremarkable, kinda beige, maybe even disappointing. He'd expected to go out with a bang, not a snap and then nothing. But he remembers the look on Peter's face and the way he hiccupped when he laugh-sobbed at Tony's shitty final joke. 

"Hey, Mr. Stark," Peter says, half-asleep, as he shifts to blink at him. 

"Hey, kid," he replies. He smiles. So does Peter, and Tony feels himself light up inside.

Dying was unremarkable, but now he has a second chance.

Dying was unremarkable. His new life sure won't be.


End file.
